Pages

Saturday, May 25, 2013

BARCELONA: Gambian parents jailed for cutting daughters

Gambian parents jailed in Spain for circumcising daughters

by Fiona Govan, Madrid

In what is believed to be the toughest sentence in Europe to date for
parents who allowed genital mutilation on their daughters, Binta
Sankano and her husband Sekou Tutay, were sentenced to six years for
each crime against their young daughters.

A panel of judges at the Provincial Court in Barcelona ruled that the
parents, both of Gambian nationality and resident in Spain for 20
years, were criminally responsible for the clitoridectomy performed on
both their daughters.

"The couple deliberately mutilated their young daughters either
directly or through a person of unknown identity," said the written
judgement. "Female circumcision is not a culture. It is mutilation and
discrimination against women."

The case came to light when doctors examined the girls in January
2011 and discovered that both had undergone a procedure of female
genital mutilation during a period of six months since their last
examination. They were aged six and 11 at the time.

It is one of the first such cases to be successfully prosecuted in
Spain because despite not knowing exactly when or who carried out the
procedures it was proven that they must have occurred on Spanish soil
and not on a visit to Gambia and that the parents were aware it was
illegal.

The parents accepted in court that the family had not travelled from
their home in Villanova I la Gertru, a small town 25 miles south of
Barcelona, to Gambia since 2009.

Social services had visited the parents in 2008 and discussed the issue of female circumcision.

"On that occasion the woman made a promise as a mother not to
undertake such a practice on her daughters," the court ruling stated.

Both parents denied knowledge of their daughters having undergone any
procedure and Sankano insisted that she was not aware that such a
practice was illegal in Spain.

The written judgement observed the "inevitable clash of cultures" that occurs with migration but said: "Respect for cultural traditions must be limited against the respect for human rights as universally recognised."

There are no reliable figures for how many female circumcisions take place in Spain each year.